People v. Preston

• Decision Date: 06 December 1930
• Docket Number: No. 20134.,20134.
• Citation: 341 Ill. 407,173 N.E. 383
• Parties: PEOPLE v. PRESTON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

341 Ill. 407

173 N.E. 383

PEOPLE

v.PRESTON.

No. 20134.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 25, 1930.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 6, 1930.

Error to Circuit Court, Du Page County; William J. Fulton, Judge.

John Preston was convicted of murder, and he brings error.

Affirmed.Eugene L. McGarry, of Chicago, and Edgar J. Elliott, of Lombard, for plaintiff in error.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Atty. Gen., C. W. Reed, State's Atty., of Naperville, and George P. O'Brien, of Litchfield (Win. G. Knoch and R. W. Keeney, both of Naperville, of counsel), for the People.

HEARD, J.

Plaintiff in error, John Preston, hereinafter called the defendant, was indicted at the October, 1929, term of the circuit court of Du Page county for the murder of Agnes Johnston, and was convicted by a jury on December 12, 1929, the jury fixing his punishment at death. Motion for a new trial was overruled on January 31, 1930, sentence pronounced in accordance with the verdict, and execution set for February 19, 1930. He brought his case to this court for review at the June term, 1930.

The evidence showed that the defendant, a married man, a painter by occupation, while working in the offices of Libby, McNeill & Libby, at the Union Stock Yards, about October 7, 1929, became acquainted with Miss Mathilda Murphy and Miss Agnes Johnston, also employed there. He told Miss Murphy to get Miss Johnston some night and he would get a fellow to go out on a ‘date’ with them. Miss Murphy saw Miss Johnston and arranged for the defendant and another man to take the two girls out to dinner. On the following Saturday afternoon, according to the testimony of Miss Murphy, the defendant called her on the telephone and said he could not get the fellow to go along with them, but, as long as he had made the date for Saturday night, he did not wish to disappoint Miss Johnston, so they would take her along anyway and keep the date. He said they would go out and get dinner. He called for Miss Murphy in a Chrysler sedan, and they in time called for Miss Johnston at her home. All three sat in the front seat, Miss Murphy on the right of the defendant and Miss Johnston on the outside, to the right of Miss Murphy. He said they would go out to West Chicago, which was about an hour's ride. It appears that he previously had called up Hansen's resort, near West Chicago, and had arranged for a party of four or six for supper. On the way out he stopped and drank out of a bottle and took some pop afterwards. When they arrived at Hansen's he ordered a steak dinner, and they had some beer. During the meal he jumped up and said, ‘Beer for everybody in the place!’ The girls became frightened and inquired as to means of getting home, as it was getting late. After talking to the defendnat about it getting late, he bought some Dutch Master cigars and all three of them got into the car, their positions the same as before. When they started out from Hansen's, the defendant said, ‘We are going through Wast Chicago home, because I want to show you the standpipe that I painted out there.’ They traveled over a gravel road, the defendant driving at a fast pace until told by the girls not to drive so fast. He turned off on a side road and suddenly stopped the car and made indecent proposals to the girls. Miss Johnston opened the door, jumped out of the car, and started to run down the road. Miss Murphy followed a few feet after, and the defendant came running up to her. She said: ‘For God's sake, be a man; you know we are decent; leave us alone; we will walk home.’ With that he struck her in the mouth, and she fell to the ground. She heard Miss Johnston calling, ‘Til! Til!’ two or three times, and, lifting her head, she saw the defendant with his arm around the waist of Miss Johnston, lifting her into the car. She ran after the car until she came to a farmhouse, where there were some dogs barking and jumping on the fence, which frightened her. She went back to the railroad track and flagged a train, telling the men what had happened, and the train crew took her to Wheaton.

On Sunday morning, October 13, 1929, Clinton Ketcham, Charles Mathews, and Adolph Hensel, while out hunting mushrooms, stopped behind a Chrysler sedan parked in the road outside the town of West Chicago, in Du Page county. Ketcham examined the car, and, having heard from Officer Phillips that he was looking for a car such as this one, drove back to West Chicago and got Phillips, who brought his police dog with him to where the car was standing. The dog ran to the roadside, and, following it, these men discovered the partly nude body of a woman covered with grass, but with feet protruding. Phillips went back and got Coroner Isherwood, who ordered the body taken to an undertaking establishment at West Chicago, where he made an examination of the physical condition of the body, but did not make a post mortem examination or autopsy. He stated in his opinion the young woman came to her death by means of suffocation or strangulation.

Belden Thompson, a conductor on the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin Railroad, testified that about 2:55 a. m. on Octoberr 13 he picked up a passenger at Maple street, West Chicago, whom he identified as the defendant. He stated that the defendant told him he had been held up; that he had been out to a roadhouse drinking, and had bought several rounds; that there were two strangers there, shabbily dressed, who noticed that he had a considerable amount of money with him; that when he started to leave they followed him, drove him to one side of the road, and took $65 from him and his new Chrysler car, which had only gone 200 miles; that two girls were with him, and the last thing he knew he saw one girl running down the road and the other girl was still in the machine; that they hit him in the mouth and knocked him out; that he rode this train to Wheaton, where he had to change cars for Chicago. The witness said that the defendant wore a light hat that had considerable amount of blood over it. his shirt sleeves extended up over his coat and were all covered with blood. He had a cut across his fingers, which he said was where he was shot, quite an open wound, and had a cut across his face, where he had been hit by the holdup men. The witness reported to the police at Wheaton that a man was on the east-bound train with blood on his clothing, and the defendant was taken into custody at Forest Park by the chief of police, who later turned him over to Sheriff Hattendorf, of Du Page county.

Dillard Dunfee, a cook in the Douglas Restaurant at West Chicago, testified he had seen the defendant during the summer; that about 1:30 a. m., October 13, the defendant came to the restaurant and called him out of the kitchen; that he had blood on his hat, on the sleeve of his shirt, and on his face, and his hand was cut, cut bad: that the blood on his hands, he explained, was caused by getting hurt in a holdup, which took place north of West Chicago, and in which they took $60 or $65 away from him; that the defendant asked him to call Lefty Flynn and have him come and get him, and he called Flynn for him.

Cecil Flynn, otherwise called ‘Lefty,’ an attendant at the service station and lunchroom of Charles Hansen, corroborated Miss Murphy regarding the movements of the defendant and the two girls while at Hansen's place, and saw them leave. He further testified that the defendant called him about 1:30 a. m. and asked him to come out to West Chicago and get him, that he had been ‘hijacked’ and shot in the hand; that he met the defendant at the Douglas restaurant; that the defendant's hand was bloody and was torn or split between the little finger and the ring finger; that he asked the defendant where his car was, and he told him it was out in the ‘sticks'; that Miss Hansen and others were with witness, and she asked the defendant where the girls were, and he told her they were with the car; that he drove the defendant to the Maple Street Station, where he saw him get on the train towards Wheaton.

Deputy Sheriff Ed Lang testified that, while patrolling the highways on Sunday, October 13, on a road about a quarter of a mile from the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad tracks, he found four Dutch Master cigars wrapped in tin foil, one of which was broken. He saw three patches of blood on the road on the east side, and found a lady's felt hat in the ditch, also a handkerchief, both of which he put in his car. On further investigation he found some footmarks and a large pool of blood about eight inches in diameter. He later turned the hat and handkerchief over to Sheriff Hattendorf.

Sheriff Lawrence Hattendorf testified that he examined the ground about a quarter of a mile east of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad tracks and found shoeprints of a lady's heel and a large blood spot in the road, six or eight inches in diameter, and another blood spot twenty-five or thirty feet to the west. The defendant was turned over to witness, who removed his hat, shirt, and underclothing, all of which were admitted into evidence without objection.

Louis Zizra testified that he was hunting mushrooms in Du Page county on Sunday, October 13, about 8:30 a. m., and that on the road, about two miles northwest of West Chicago he found a pair of white gloves, which he turned over to Sheriff Hattendorf. These gloves, the hat, and handkerchief found by Ed Lang, and the articles of clothing taken from the body of the deceased, were all stated by Miss Murphy to belong to the deceased.

After his arrest, the defendant made a statement on Sunday afternoon and another statement on Monday morning, which were in conflict with each other. In the statement on Monday, as testified to by Dr. Isherwood and Sheriff Hattendorf, he admitted attacking Miss Johston and chcking her to pervent her screaming.

The defendant testified in his own behalf, and his testimony coincides with that of Miss Murphy as to their meeting and the trip out to Hansen's, as well as to their movements...